Eurostar trains to and from London and other trains heading northward from Paris were brought to a halt Friday following the discovery of an unexploded bomb dating back to World War II near tracks serving the French capital's busy Gare du Nord station. France's national train operator SNCF said in a statement that traffic was stopped at the request of police. The bomb was discovered around 4am by workers doing earth-moving work near the tracks in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, the AP reports. Minesweepers were sent to the site. Stranded travelers converged on the station as it opened Friday.
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said traffic would be ''strongly disrupted'' throughout the day and urged travelers to postpone their trips. The Gare du Nord is a major European transit hub, serving international destinations north of France such as the EU capital, Brussels, and the Netherlands, as well as the main Paris airport and many regional destinations. The BBC notes that during World War II, British and American bombers targeted railyards in Paris and other Nazi-occupied cities to disrupt the German war effort.
Tabarot, speaking on broadcaster Sud Radio, said local residents and people near the train stations should have "no fear" of a risk of explosion, stressing the procedures in place for defusing and removing such bombs. Eurostar, which runs passenger trains through the Channel Tunnel between Britain and the continent, canceled all services between London and Paris on Friday morning and advised passengers to pick another day to travel. (More Eurostar stories.)
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